Rainthorpe Hall

Rainthorpe Hall and Tasburgh

Rainthorpe Hall stands just over the parish boundary in Flordon, and as so much information on it appears on other sites, including flordonhistory.webnode.com , it is not proposed to go into any great detail about the Hall itself in this article. However, when considering the history of Tasburgh, it is impossible to ignore the involvement and influence which owners of Rainthorpe have had on the village, especially as the Lordship of the Manor of Rainthorpe Hall included lands in Tasburgh, and during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries the Rainthorpe Estate was one of the major owners of properties in the parish. For a while it also owned the right to appoint the rector of Tasburgh.

Rainthorpe is one of the "lost" villages of Norfolk, but evidence for its location about 500m north west of the current Hall, near the site of a Roman farm, has been found in the form of Saxon and medieval pottery. Roman tiles have also been found in what was the site of Church Wood, providing two clues as to the likely whereabouts of the church, as Roman tiles were often reused in early building work to supplement local stone. In the Doomsday Book of 1086 Rainthorpe is referred to as having no more than ten households, but the principal Lord or landowner, Roger de Rames, who was rewarded by William the Conquerer with 27 Manors mostly in Essex and Suffolk, was credited with 2.2 mills, and it seems likely that a one fifth share was in a mill in Tasburgh. Tracing early ownership of the Manor, yet alone occupation of any manor house, is made more difficult by the fact that the Lordship for Rainthorpe became split into four parts, one of which held lands in Tasburgh. In the 1300s, a series of poor harvests, coupled with the Black Death, led to the decline of many rural communities, and by 1450 Rainthorpe had ceased to exist as a separate parish, and had been merged with Newton Flotman.

Well before then, it seems likely that a new manor house had been built on what is now the garden between Rainthorpe Hall and the river, because the parish boundary crosses the Tas at that point to include an extra rectangle of land, presumably so that future owners and occupiers could align themselves with Tasburgh and, more importantly, with Tasburgh parish church. In about 1500 that house burnt down and was replaced with one on the site of the present Hall by Alexander Chapman, one of a series of owners of that name. That house forms the central core of the present Hall. Although there was no further adjustment of the parish boundary, subsequent owners continued to use and support St Mary's Tasburgh, rather than Flordon or Newton Flotman.

Thomas Baxter, a lawyer who had bought the Hall in 1579 was largely responsible for the building in its current form by adding the two brick wings and the three storey porch. Following the death of his daughter in 1586 he placed a small memorial brass to her memory in the church, and the following year created a tomb for his wife, Elizabeth, by the south wall just before the chancel. In 1603 he was recorded as patron of the living for Tasburgh so must have acquired that separately as he hadn't appointed William Temple as the rector in 1586. Thomas Baxter died in 1611, but there is a mystery surrounding his death because the rector recorded in the register that he was "buried at night by whom I know not". Thomas Baxter's own memorial tomb is on the south side of the chancel whilst on the north wall there is a memorial dated 1629 to the next owners of Rainthorpe, Thomas Newce, a merchant from Essex and his wife Margaret. Nearby there is a small lozenge of stained glass in the north window of the chancel depicting Thomas' father, William Newce, and his two wives. This came from Rainthorpe Hall and was presented to the church in 1960 by the then owner, Mrs Rosemary Hastings. It's not known exactly when Thomas Newce bought Rainthorpe but Thomas Baxter's son, Francis, was still in residence in 1613.

As with Thomas Baxter, Thomas Newce was succeeded by his son, also Thomas, who in 1660 was one of the signatories to a Petition from the people of Norfolk calling for the return of Parliament. Thomas is also recorded in the church as having appointed the new rector in 1661, following the restoration of the monarchy. After the death of Thomas Newce the younger, his widow Mary, from his second marriage, married Edmund Bedingfield (Norfolk Record Office ref. MS168816,63X1) who thereby became the owner of the Hall and its estate and also Lord of the Manor of Rainthorpe. In that capacity he appointed the next two rectors of Tasburgh in 1679 and 1682, but he may not then have been living at Rainthorpe because in the Consistory Court probate records there is reference in 1684 to the death of John Mingay "of Rainthorpe Hall, Tasburgh." John Mingay had also signed the Norfolk Petition in 1660, so might well have been known to Thomas Newce and his widow.

From the Bedingfield family the Hall was sold to Richard Carter, a Norwich attorney at law, who in 1712 transferred the Manor of Rainthorpe and Rainthorpe Hall with the advowson of Tasburgh, or right to appoint the rector, and also houses and lands in Flordon, Tasburgh, Saxlingham and Newton Flotman to the trustees of a Settlement on Marriage between his son Richard and Amy Topcliffe of Hoveton St. John. From the descriptions of the properties, it is clear that the estate was rented out, the Hall to Charles Jacob and another farm to John Reeves (NRO ref. MS18045,76X6). The same document records that the property was transferred to the trustees subject to an annuity payable annually to Henry Bedingfield for life, so it was probably he who had sold the estate to Richard Carter the elder, because it was quite common practice in the past to require payment of an annuity as part of the purchase price. At some point before 1723 however it would seem that Rainthorpe Hall and the advowson of Tasburgh had been sold to Walter Bateman, a worsted weaver from Norwich, who is recorded by Francis Blomfield in his History of Norfolk as having appointed John Bourne as rector of Tasburgh that year. Walter Bateman was later declared bankrupt and the Hall and surrounding land was again sold, to Richard Wright, another Norwich worsted weaver and merchant. This was probably before 1746 when Richard Wright is recorded as buying other land in Tasburgh, in which case both sales would have been during the lifetime of Richard Carter the younger who died in 1752. As with the Carter family, it is thought that both owners would have been absentee landlords. From the Tasburgh Manorial Court records, it is known that one tenant, George Hart, who was first recorded as a local landowner in 1725, lived at Rainthorpe Hall, and it seems that following his death in 1759, his son continued the tenancy because a grandchild is shown in the Quaker records as having been born at Rainthorpe in 1769. Indeed George Hart's descendants continued to own land in Tasburgh until 1853.

Richard Wright died in 1770, and he was followed by his son Robert. In 1761 they had both been recorded as worsted weavers and merchants voting in a parliamentry election in the Norwich parish of St. Laurence. A plan of the Rainthorpe estate prepared for Robert in 1772 is held in the Norfolk Record Office (ref. WLP 10/32) and shows that the estate at that time only comprised 146 acres, of which 143 were let, including Rookery Farm and land in Grove Lane which had been purchased by his father in 1746. Whether the remaining 3 unlet acres represented the Hall and its gardens occupied by Robert Wright isn't known but that has to be a possibility, because a Richard Wright, possibly his son or brother, lived in the house at Rookery Farm. However ten years later Robert and Richard Wright were declared bankrupt, and the estate was purchased in 1782 by John Freshfield, another Norwich merchant. He certainly lived at Rainthorpe Hall because his daughter Elizabeth is recorded as getting married in Tasburgh church in 1783, and her address was given as Rainthorpe.

In 1791 Rainthorpe Hall and most of the estate was sold to John Gay, a Norwich lawyer whose father, also John, had been Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1754 and before that had acted as under-steward to the Lord of the Manor of Tasburgh Uphall with Boylands and Hunts. However, John Freshfield retained ownership of Rookery Farm until 1795 before selling it to the tenant. In 1804 John Gay is recorded as having bought a house and 74 acres of land in Tasburgh, thought to be White Horse Farm then occupied by John Hudson, for £2,400 (NRO ref. ETN1/4/38) from Francis Charles Parry, who had inherited the farm in 1792 on the death of his grandmother Amy, the only daughter and heir of Richard Carter the younger. As the title to the farm went back to the 1712 Carter Marriage Settlement it seems clear that although the family had sold off the Hall and Lordship of the Manor, they didn't sell all of the estate to Walter Bateman. In his capacity as Lord of the Manor of Rainthorpe, John Gay was a joint promoter of the 1813 Enclosure Act for Tasburgh, and the map attached to the Enclosure Award in 1818 (NRO ref. C/Sca 2/285) shows the extent of the land he owned in the village and the further pieces of common land awarded to him, freed from commoners' rights. Following his death in 1824, John Gay was succeeded by his daughter, Mary, who in 1810 had married Theophilus Girdlestone, the rector of Baconsthorpe where her eight children were born. After being widowed in 1832, she returned to Rainthorpe where she was living with five of her children and five servants at the time of the census in 1841. However the estate, which was mainly let, was never really large enough to be fully self-supporting for a hall of Rainthorpe's size, and by 1851 she had moved to Cambridge. Presumably as none of her eight children was able or wished to take it on, she put the estate up for sale by auction at The Royal Hotel in Norwich on 14th August 1852 (NRO ref. WLP14/12).

Lot 2, being Manor Farm Cottage, then partly used as a general shop, White Cottage and an adjoining cottage in Saxlingham Lane, since demolished, were all sold for £100, perhaps indicating that they were not in the best condition. Lot 3, being Orchard Cottage in Saxlingham Lane and a pair of adjoining cottages which burned down in 1948, were sold to the same buyer for £400, and Lot 4, described as a double cottage and shoemaker's shop, now Howard and Colwyn, on Low Road including 14 acres off Flordon Road, were sold for £800. However Lot 5, being the Hall itself plus Hall Farm, Newton Flotman (then called The Pleasure Farm) totalling 141 acres of land and gardens, and Lot 1, being White Horse Farm of 114 acres, remained unsold and were bought the following year by Sir Frederick Walpole MP. He was able to buy back the Saxlingham Lane cottages as well as acquiring Tasburgh mill, but seems to have sold off White Horse Farm because it wasn't included when, following his death in 1876, the estate totalling 237 acres was again put up for sale by auction in 1878 (NRO ref. WLP14/26), and was sold as a whole to Sir Charles Harvey for nearly £20,000.

Sir Charles greatly expanded the estate by the purchase of Manor Farm, White Horse Farm, Rookery Farm, Old Hall Farm, Cottage Farm and High Road Farm plus a number of cottages along Low Road, as well as other farms in Flordon, Newton Flotman and Saxlingham, taking the total area to nearly 1,200 acres. He was also a great benefactor of the church, and between 1897, following the death of the Rev. Henry Preston, and 1922 he paid for extensive works of restoration and alteration; the chancel arch was rebuilt and raised, the current roofs were constructed, the old pews, a three-decker pulpit and the Elizabethan altar table were removed and replaced, and a gallery at the west end was taken down. In 1911 the vestry was built and in 1922 one of the southern windows in the chancel was removed to make a bay for the current organ. Sir Charles also took an interest in the village school, allowing the theatre at Rainthorpe Hall to be used for concerts and plays, and he paid for the annual school outing, which for most children would have been their only visit to the seaside.

In 1920 Sir Charles sold off by auction a number of his outlying properties including Flordon Hall Farm, Cranes Farm and Lime Kiln Farm in Newton Flotman, Hill Farm, Saxlingham, High Road Farm, Tasburgh, and the wheelwright's shop and dwelling house, Taas Ford, on Low Road (NRO ref. MC1333/2-23). After his death in 1928, the remainder of his Rainthorpe Estate amounting to 600 acres was put up for sale by auction, comprising 35 lots which included all the houses and cottages in Saxlingham Lane and along Low Road as far as the Mill, except for Glebe Cottage, The Limes and The Firs (NRO ref. MC14/322). However, as in 1852, the Hall itself and Hall Farm, Newton Flotman, together with White Horse Farm, Manor Farm, and the cottages along Saxlingham Lane, except Rookery Cottage, remained unsold. In due course, Sir Charles's son became the British Ambassador in Paris, was granted a peerage as Lord Harvey of Tasburgh, and when he died was buried in Tasburgh Churchyard.

It was not until 1934 that the remaining properties were acquired by J. Maurice Hastings. His wife Rosemary Hastings had been an American heiress whose family had made its money from producing the paper for the printing of dollar bills, but she involved herself in the village, carrying out war-related work, and then after 1945 as chair of the Women's Institute, was involved in fund raising for the village hall appeal and the church. Fetes, dances and other events were held at Rainthorpe, the theatre continued to be used for school productions and by the village drama group, and the football club played its early home matches on one of the Rainthorpe fields, though it was not popular with visiting teams, given its slope and an abundance of mole hills and rabbit scrapes! It was appropriate therefore that when the new village hall was finally completed, it was Mrs Hastings who was invited to formally open it in September 1953.

Staffing at Rainthorpe provided local employment for several people in the village, and fetes and church events continued to be held there until well into the 1970s. Following Mrs Hastings death in 1983, Rainthorpe passed to her son George, but after his death ten years later, the estate was again broken up as individual properties were gradually sold off. The last employee to leave was the woodsman, Dick Ramm who lived in Orchard Cottage. George Hastings' sister, Virginia, and her son Mark Bedini retained Hall Farm and converted the farm buildings, now Long Barn, Newton Flotman, but the Hall itself was bought by Alastair and Susie Wilson, both London barristers, who for a while licensed the property for weddings. The Hall was sold again in 2019 but there now seems little chance of Rainthorpe ever again having the importance it once held for the village of Tasburgh.

Complied and researched by Ben Goodfellow with assistance from John and Caroline Lowton, November 2020.

The photograph above shows the main hall on the ground floor at the front of the house in 2018.